


Idiom

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Tending faintly toward slash, if you squint at it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Idiom

**Author's Note:**

> Tending faintly toward slash, if you squint at it.

They've been working the duet thing for a couple of weeks now, and at first they mostly ate at diners and quick cheap places. But after a while Ray starts to figure out that Fraser gets a little tired of fending off waitresses after a long day of fending off Francesca. (And Ray thought the fending off was a little—-strange—-for a while. But then he realized, for a guy who looks like Fraser, it's gotta be like working in a candy factory—-it's right there in your face all the time, and eventually you don't _want_ any. Which is—-tragic, is what it is. But not a problem _Ray_ has, anyway.)

So he starts inviting Fraser over to his place for dinner. Which means he gets the dirty clothes off the couch and picks up the newspapers and calls out for pizza.

And after a few pizza nights, Fraser offers to have _him_ over.

"Over to WHAT, Frase? You're, like, sleeping in a file cabinet over there."

"On the contrary, Ray, I have full privileges in the quite excellent consulate kitchen. And I believe we can eat in the formal dining room if you will refrain from trying to balance beer bottles on your forehead."

Ray makes a violent and terrifying face at him, but says he'll show.

And when he gets there Fraser's making--well, something that smells great and is red and has a lot of vowels in the name. It seems to require a ton of stirring and tasting, and while Fraser's doing that he asks Ray to get out some cilantro—"That's my cupboard, there, two doors to the left."

"So where IS the cilantro?" Ray says, expecting "Top shelf" or "Maybe toward the back?" or even, "I am unsure, Ray, it's in there somewhere," but what he gets is "Between the chives and the cinnamon."

And, of course, there it is. "You ALPHABETIZE your spices?" he said. "I can't believe you—-that is so _girly_, Fraser."

"I fail to see how making spice access swifter and more efficient is specifically feminine, Ray."

Ray brings it to the stove, hands it over, leans over the pot a little to watch Fraser measure it out. "You've got your clothes all separated out, I bet, too? Same colors together?"

Fraser's stirring, says, "Not just same colors together. Rainbow order. Roy G. Biv."

And Ray _thinks_ he was probably kidding, but geez, this guy, you never know, so he says, "You're _fucking_ with me, right?"

Fraser turns from the pot, and whoa, facing Ray he's somehow a lot closer than sideways to Ray. And he has this—-weird look, one Ray hasn't seen before, and—-oh _hell_, Ray thinks, did I just—-does he think—

"I don't mean _fucking_ with, Fraser, I just mean—-yanking my chain. I mean, pulling my-" and CHRIST, _is_ there a way to say fucking with that doesn't sound like, you know, FUCKING with?

"I am aware of the vernacular, Ray," Fraser says, and the weird look disappears and he gets the one-sided smile, "and yes, I am fucking with you."

When Ray gets home that night he finds himself trying to remember a single damn thing they'd talked about through the whole meal. And all he can recall is: Fraser said _fucking_. Whoa.

 

\--END--


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